One of the biggest threats for teenagers and adults is alcoholism. Even though alcohol is legal in our societies, we have seen a steep increase in its use.
However, it’s not the social use of alcohol that creates health issues for people. When you pass over the limit for alcohol intake because you believe it makes you feel better, then you are on the rim of alcoholism.
Doctors say that alcoholism is when you drink more than 30ml of pure alcohol in hard spirits, beer, or wine during the calendar day.
It’s one of the toughest decisions to make when you need to say to yourself and admit you are an alcoholic.
Today we will elaborate more on a special feature that almost all alcoholics have.
It’s the talking to themselves pattern that is prevalent in most of them and has to do with special functions happening due to alcohol in their central nervous systems.
Alcoholism Is a Mental Illness
According to the ICD10, which is the International Classification of Diseases, alcoholism is officially a mental illness.
That means you need to treat alcoholics like you do with any other patient suffering from depression, psychosis, or even schizophrenia.
Alcoholics act like they are normal people when they are around their social background.
However, their only hope and goal for the day would be to buy hard spirit bottles and consume them alone at home or any other private facility.
They make the same pattern daily, so eventually, someone will find out they are alcoholics and dependent on alcohol to be cheerful and have the energy to survive and work.
Frequently we can see a great correlation between alcoholism, manic-depression, and other mental illnesses.
Doctors believe that behavioral therapy and drugs could help alcoholics who are in the first stages and could control themselves from stepping down to intoxication on a daily basis.
Too Much Alcohol in Your Blood Can Affect Your Brain
Indeed, when the alcohol exceeds the power of your liver to metabolize it, most of it goes to organs like your kidneys, lungs, and, most importantly, the brain.
It’s sad to know that alcohol has a high affinity for the brain cells, and it can pass through the so-called blood-brain barrier.
As a result, soon after the ingestion of alcohol in your body, you should expect to have alcohol directly absorbed by your brain cells. That could create an imbalance in the number of neurotransmitters produced there.
For instance, serotonin and dopamine are two of the most important mood stabilizers of your brain and spinal cord. The presence of alcohol in your nerve cells could relent the reception of dopamine and serotonin to other cells.
That creates a certain reaction in terms of behavior, as your brain is the main responsible organ for regulating your behavior against others.
Drinking more alcohol would just relent the whole process of healing and finding your best possible mood.
Some Alcoholics Don’t Have Access to Anonymous Teams
Today there are anonymous alcoholics teams in any city around the world. It’s about a group of alcoholics that don’t need to register with their real names and who attend a weekly or bi-weekly class to support each other.
Clinical psychologists organize alcoholic anonymous meetings to ensure that anyone can easily attend. Also, the level of addiction to alcohol is to be judged by them when a new member comes to join the team.
Some alcoholics may not have access to such teams, so they address their communication needs by talking to themselves. It’s a common practice for people who can’t stand their situation and have no other to talk about it.
So turning to themselves is their last resort, and they do it regularly. It’s how you see some homeless people talking to themselves and drinking, and now it’s all explained.
Many Alcoholics Are Embarrassed by their Situation
Don’t forget that alcoholism carries a social stigma for everyone involved. That’s why most alcoholics prefer to stay home and drink alone.
Most of them cannot even admit their health issue and addiction to their close family and friends. That’s why they keep talking to themselves as a normal reaction to their isolation.
Being embarrassed about your situation as an alcoholic means losing your interest in daily life and even quitting your job and selling your belongings.
Alcoholics usually live on the margin of society and are very shy about expressing their feelings.
That’s why their only friend remains themselves, and they try to talk to them all the time, even when they are close to other people. It’s a mechanism of social defense that alcoholics use to survive and not hurt themselves anymore.
Talking to Themselves Makes them Justify Their Alcohol Intake
Another reason alcoholics talk to themselves is that they have a strong need to justify their behavior. They all know they destroy themselves by drinking excessive alcohol quantities.
However, they prefer to keep on doing that because they reach their optimal buzz state and are happy for a little while.
Then the vicious cycle of depression and anxiety comes again, and they need to talk to themselves to rationalize their decisions and lifestyle.
It’s Easier to Drink Alone and Talk to Yourself
Finally, drinking alone and talking to yourself is an easy pattern to follow. That’s why you will always like to have a fantastic friend listening to you when you are an alcoholic.
Being in the state of overdrinking alcohol is always a dead-end situation.
That’s why you better call the experts and find the alcohol anonymous teams through the phone that can support you and bring you out of your misery.
Final Words
When being an alcoholic, it’s frequent to have adjacent mental issues like talking to yourself. If you don’t care about it then you can keep on drinking.
However, taking the advice of the experts could help you socialize and cut drinking to gain control of your life back. That’s the ultimate thing you can do to escape from alcoholism.
